Live. US doing 'very well' in Iran, Trump says as strikes continue across Middle East

Three large interception blasts were reported over Doha, sending shockwaves across parts of the city and prompting emergency alerts on residents’ mobile phones instructing them to seek shelter.

Air defence activity has been reported over the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that elements of the Iranian military may not be following a previously announced position from Iran’s civilian leadership, raising concerns about potential internal divisions during the unfolding situation.

US President Donald Trump said Saturday that the US is doing "very well" in Iran, saying the war is “a service that we’re providing, not for the Middle East but for the world”.

He is gathering with Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club for a "Shield of the Americas" summit, where the US-Israeli war on Iran is looming large.

Trump also said the US has destroyed 42 Iranian navy ships in three days, as well as Iranian air power and telecommunications.

The United States has started using British bases for certain operations against Iran during the Middle East war, the UK government has announced.

Britain's defence ministry said the US had begun using the military sites for "specific defensive operations to prevent Iran firing missiles into the region".

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially refused to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran. Trump had said he was "not happy with the UK" and mocked Starmer by saying "this is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with".

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has defended his initial decision by saying any UK "must always have a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan". He later agree to a US request to use two British military bases for a "specific and limited defensive purpose".

Those bases are Fairford in Gloucestershire, western England, and the UK-US Diego Garcia base on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Starmer has also insisted that he was right to change his position because Iran's retaliation with missiles and drones to the US-Israeli strikes have threatened British interests and allies in the region.

The US State Department says more than 28,000 Americans have returned to the United States from the Middle East since the start of the Iran war seven days ago.

The vast majority of those have made their way home without government assistance on commercial flights, although the department said Saturday it had organised more than a dozen charter flights that had evacuated several thousand Americans.

It said it had offered direct assistance - in the form of safety and security information as well as providing charter options - to more than 16,000 US citizens who have reached out for help.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States on Saturday of attacking a desalination plant on a Gulf island, saying it had set a precedent.

"The US committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island," said Araghchi in a post on X.

"Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted. Attacking Iran's infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The US set this precedent, not Iran."

An Israeli air strike on a town in eastern Lebanon killed six people, including four children, the Lebanese health ministry said, in a separate incident from a nearby commando operation.

"The Israeli enemy raid on the town of Shmistar in the Baalbek district at dawn resulted in the killing of six citizens, including four children and a woman," the ministry said in a statement.

The state-run National News Agency said that the six killed were from the same family, displaced from the city of Baalbek during the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Ghana condemned an attack on a UN base in southern Lebanon that seriously wounded three Ghanaian UN peacekeepers on Friday.

Ghana said it had lodged a formal complaint with the UN.

The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, has accused Israel of targeting them, and the UN peacekeeping force has said it will investigate.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres "condemns the incident on Friday March 6 which resulted in three Ghanaian peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) being injured inside their position in Al Qawzah, southwestern Lebanon".

In its formal complaint to the UN, the Ghanaian government said the officers' mess building inside UNIFIL base had been burned to the ground in the strike.

The attack occurred during an exchange of fire between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

The Israeli military's strikes on east Lebanon, where Israeli forces carried out a commando operation, killed 41 people, the Lebanese health ministry said on Saturday.

"The series of raids launched by the Israeli enemy on the town of Nabi Sheet and surrounding towns in the Baalbek district resulted in a total of 41 citizens killed and 40 others wounded," the ministry said in a statement.

A previous toll had reported 16 killed and 35 wounded.

Jordan accused Iran on Saturday of directly targeting sites in the kingdom, firing 119 missiles and drones in the week since US-Israeli strikes triggered a regional war.

Jordanian military spokesman Brigadier General Mustafa Hayari told a news conference that 108 of the projectiles had been intercepted.

"These missiles and drones were targeting vital installations inside Jordan and were not passing through our territories," he said.

US President Donald Trump has warned that “Today Iran will be hit very hard in comments on his Truth Social website, noting an apology by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the day to neighbouring nations over Tehran’s attacks.

“Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behaviour, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.

Trump also said Iran is “being beat to hell” and called the country the “loser of the Middle East.”

The war started on 28 February with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran which initially killed the country’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other senior leaders.

The stated goals and timelines for the war have repeatedly shifted, as the US has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran’s government or elevate new leadership from within.

There has been anger across the Gulf over repeated Iranian air strikes that Tehran says were targeting US military assets.

But some of those missile and drone attacks have also hit and damaged civilian infrastructure as well as closing down many of the region’s airports, stranding tens of thousands of passengers.

Israel's military said on Saturday it had carried out an operation in Lebanon to find the remains of airman Ron Arad, but failed to uncover any trace of the navigator missing since 1986.

"As part of IDF activities in Lebanon, IDF special forces operated overnight in an attempt to locate findings related to the missing navigator Ron Arad. No IDF injuries were reported," the Israeli army said in a statement.

"No findings related to him were located at the search site."

A prominent cleric in Iran, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, urged the country’s Assembly of Experts to act quickly and name a new supreme leader, likely in response to ongoing political confusion.

Buildings associated with the 88-cleric panel have been hit by airstrikes in the war, likely slowing any meeting of the group.

“The timely realisation of this important matter will lead to national authority and the best possible organisation of affairs,” Shirazi said in a statement.

Former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in joint US-Israeli air strikes on 28 February in the opening salvo of the now week-long war.

The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon on Saturday urged Lebanon and Israel to enter talks to negotiate an end hostilities after the outbreak of a renewed Israel-Hezbollah war.

"As bad as things are today, they are set to get even worse," Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said.

"Talks between Lebanon and Israel can be the game changer needed to save future generations from going, time and again, through the same nightmare."

In December, Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives engaged in their first direct talks in decades as part of a meeting of a committee monitoring the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanon was engulfed by the expanding Middle East war on Monday, after Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel to avenge the death of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Explosions were heard and air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem on Saturday, journalists with the AFP news agency said, as the US-Israeli war with Iran entered a second week.

At least three explosions were heard, while over the past 24 hours at least six air raid alerts have been issued across Israel.

The latest wave of Israeli airstrikes included targets in Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa Valley, the Israeli military said.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said earlier that overnight airstrikes in that area killed at least 16 people and wounded 35.

The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed there late on Friday. Israel hasn’t commented on the fighting in the Beqaa Valley.

The military also said its Saturday strikes hit rocket launchers, weapons storage facilities and two command centres of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force in southern Lebanon.

Bahrain’s military intercepted two missiles and a drone on Saturday, the Defence Ministry said.

That brought to 86 missiles and 148 drones that have been intercepted over Bahrain since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran last weekend.

Saudi Arabia’s defence minister and Pakistan’s army chief met on Saturday to discuss ways to stop attacks coming from Iran, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, a son of King Salman, talked with Field Marshal Asim Munir in Riyadh about the Iranian attacks.

Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan had signed a mutual defence pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both.

India’s foreign minister said on Saturday that an Iranian naval vessel has docked in India, after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship and another vessel sought assistance from Sri Lanka.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the IRIS Lavan is docked in southern Kochi city, after India granted permission when the vessel reported “having problems” on 1 March.

“I think it was the humane thing to do,” Jaishankar said.

A US submarine sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

Another vessel, the IRIS Bushehr, requested assistance from Sri Lanka and more than 200 sailors were brought ashore.

Both ships had previously taken part in naval exercises hosted by India, but Jaishankar said they got “caught on the wrong side of events” once the war began.

Sirens sounded in Bahrain ahead of a potential attack for the fifth time on Saturday, the interior ministry said, urging people to head to the nearest safe location.

Iranian drone attack in the vicinity of the terminals at Dubai International Airport forced the temporary suspension of operations.

The Dubai Media Office issued a statement saying: “For the safety of passengers, airport staff, and airline crew, operations at Dubai International (DXB) have been temporarily suspended.”

Black smoke was seen rising over the airport after a loud boom, multiple eyewitness accounts said.

Airport operations are reportedly now resuming.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 16 people and wounded 35 others overnight in the mountain town of Nabi Chit.

The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed late on Friday in the mountains of eastern Lebanon.

Israel has yet to comment on the fighting there.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has apologised to countries in the Gulf for hitting them with air strikes in an address on state television on Saturday.

"The decision we made in the interim leadership council yesterday has been delivered to the armed forces. From now on they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked from those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy," he said.

“I personally apologise to the neighbouring countries that were targeted by attacks from Iran.”

“After the recent events, in which our commanders and our leader lost their lives, our armed forces — in the absence of their commanders — carried out all the actions they deemed necessary on their own initiative,” he added.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has been at the forefront of the war, answers only to the country’s supreme leader. However, an Israeli airstrike killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the war on 28 February creating what Pezeshikian called miscommunication in the ranks.

There has been anger across the Gulf for repeated Iranian air strikes that Tehran says were targeting US military assets. But some of those strikes have also hit and damaged civilian infrastructure as well as closing down many of the region’s airports.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had targeted an oil tanker in the Gulf in their conflict with Israel and the United States.

"This morning, an oil tanker with the trade name Prima was hit by an exploding drone after ignoring repeated warnings from the IRGC naval forces regarding the prohibition of traffic and the insecurity of the Strait of Hormuz," the Guards said in a statement carried by Tasnim news agency.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they have targeted "separatist groups" in Iraq's Kurdistan region, as the war against Israel and the United States entered its second week.

"Three locations of separatist groups in the Iraqi region were hit...this morning," the Guards said in a statement carried by Tasnim news agency.

"If separatist groups in the region make any move against Iran's territorial integrity, we will crush them."

Our reporters in Dubai are telling us that the all-clear has been sounded in the city after mobile phone alerts were sent out earlier in the day because of “potential missile threats.”

Authorities urged the public to seek immediate shelter and planes approaching Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest, were held in a holding pattern.

Passengers waiting for flights were ushered down into train tunnels at the sprawling airfield after the missile alert was sounded.

Multiple reports from and around Dubai Airport indicate that an Iranian drone caused the shutdown.

Loud explosions struck the Iranian capital on Saturday, state TV reported, as the war with Israel and the United States entered its second week.

The blasts were heard in several parts of Tehran, state TV said without specifying which areas were hit.

Israeli and US attacks on a central Iranian province killed at least eight people on Saturday, a provincial official said, as the regional war entered its second week.

"Eight citizens, including a woman, were martyred in these terrorist attacks," said Akbar Salehi, a security official at the governor's office in Isfahan province.

"American and Zionist regime fighter jets attacked areas of Isfahan city and seven other cities in the province," Salehi said, according to the Tasnim news agency.

He added that "80 houses were severely damaged" in the city of Isfahan as well as the Lenjan and Borkhar areas.

Foreign ministers of the Arab League will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss "Iranian attacks on the territories of several Arab countries", the bloc's assistant secretary general told the AFP news agency.

The meeting, which will be held via videoconference, was requested by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Jordan and Egypt, Hossam Zaki said.

Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority announced the partial resumption of air traffic on Saturday, “through designated navigational contingency routes with limited operational capacity.”

The authority said this was being done in coordination with the Qatari Armed Forces and the relevant state authorities.

Israel's military said more than 80 fighter jets completed a wave of strikes on Iranian military sites, missile launchers and other targets in Tehran and central Iran on Saturday.

"Over 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets... completed an additional wave of strikes targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iranian terror regime," the military said in a statement.

Mobile phone alerts sounded on Saturday morning in Dubai over “potential missile threats” with authorities urging the public to seek immediate shelter.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they were waiting for US forces to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway where traffic remains strangled as the regional war rages.

"We are waiting for their presence," said Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini, after the US energy secretary announced the Navy was preparing to escort ships through the strait "as soon as it's reasonable to do it."

"We recommend that before making any decision, the Americans remember the fire of the American supertanker Bridgeton in 1987 and the oil tankers that were recently targeted," Naini said, according to Fars news agency.

For several days, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas exports with a mixture of drone strikes and fear that has prompted major companies like Maersk and Hapag-Llloyd to suspend operations in the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US Navy would "begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible."

A fifth of the world’s crude oil and LNG supplies passes through the waterway. Kpler said on 4 March that traffic through the strait was down 90%.

People headed to bomb shelters across Israel early on Saturday after hearing loud booms as Iranian missiles attacked more targets.

There were no immediate reports of casualties by Israel’s emergency services.

Iran's army said on Saturday that its navy had launched a wave of drone attacks targeting Israel as well as US bases in the United Arab Emirates, as the regional war rages into its second week.

"The Iranian Navy targeted American bases and occupied territories with a massive wave of drone attacks," the army said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.

It said the targets included the UAE's Al Minhad base and another in Kuwait, as well as a "strategic facility" in Israel.

This comes a week after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior leadership and military figures.

Explosions sent up clouds of dark smoke in the Iranian capital early on Saturday and Tehran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel as the United States warned of a forthcoming bombing campaign that officials said would be the most intense yet in the weeklong conflict.

Video showed explosions flashing and smoke rising over western Tehran as Israel said it had begun a broad wave of strikes. 

Read the full report below.

Explosions rock Tehran as US warns ‘biggest bombing’ is coming

There is no foreseeable end to the fighting and the Trump administration approved a new $151 million arms sale to Israel after Trump said he would not negotiat…

Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, urged Iran on Saturday to "exercise wisdom and avoid miscalculation", following repeated missile and drone launches at the kingdom.

After meeting with Pakistan's military chief, the Saudi minister posted on X: "We discussed Iranian attacks on the Kingdom and the measures needed to halt them... We stressed that such actions undermine regional security and stability and expressed hope that the Iranian side will exercise wisdom and avoid miscalculation."

International flight tracker Flightradar24 is reporting that several flights headed for Dubai are in a holding pattern over the airport.

Earlier on Saturday, the Dubai Media Office reported that there had been a “minor incident resulting from the fall of debris after an interception.”

Flights heading to Dubai International Airport, which is the world’s busiest for international travel and has been trying to restart services, circled a distance away just before the interception.

US President Donald Trump has arrived in Miami where he will spend the night after flying in from Washington.

He didn’t speak to journalists upon his arrival but did say earlier on Friday that the US was doing "phenomenally" in its military campaign in Iran.

On Saturday, Trump is expected to meet with Latin American leaders at the "Shield of the Americas" summit in Miami before he heads to Dover in Delaware.

That’s where he will attend what is called a "dignified transfer" ceremony, where the bodies of the six US military personnel killed in an Iranian strike on a base in Kuwait are returned home. 

More drones attacked Saudi Arabia early on Saturday, the country’s Defence Ministry said.

The ministry said it intercepted four drones attacking the country’s massive Shaybah oil field, located deep in the sands of the Empty Quarter desert. It was the second attack within hours.

Earlier, the ministry said it intercepted a drone attack targeting an area around the capital, Riyadh.

The ministry says it also intercepted two ballistic missiles targeting Prince Sultan Air Base.

An explosion and air raid sirens have been heard in the Bahraini capital Manama on Saturday morning.

"Citizens and residents are urged to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place," Bahrain's interior ministry posted on X.

A journalist with the AFP news agency heard an explosion in Jerusalem on Saturday, after air raid sirens warned of an incoming Iranian missile attack.

The Israeli military said earlier that air defences were "operating to intercept the threat", before giving the all-clear.

Writing for the Qatar-funded news network Al Jazeera, Sultan al-Khulaifi of the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies said Gulf Arab states “watched with dread” as the US and Israel launched the war with Iran and they had “invested enormous diplomatic capital in preventing precisely this moment.”

“That Iran’s response has been to turn its missiles on these same neighbours is not only a strategic miscalculation of historic proportions, but is also a profound moral and legal failure that risks poisoning relations for generations to come,” he wrote.

He also argued that “the strategic logic Iran is operating on — that attacking Gulf states will pressure Washington to end the war — is not only flawed in practice, it actively serves Israeli interests.”

“By spreading the conflict to the Gulf, Tehran is doing precisely what Israel could not do alone: steering the war away from the Israeli-Iranian axis and transforming it into a confrontation between Iran and its Arab neighbours.”

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates say there was an interception over Dubai early on Saturday.

People heard several blasts in the morning and the government’s Dubai Media Office said there was “a minor incident resulting from the fall of debris after an interception has been successfully contained.”

Flights heading to Dubai International Airport, which is the world’s busiest for international travel and has been trying to restart services, circled a distance away just before the interception.

The Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah said early on Saturday that its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed along the border with Syria.

Israel did not acknowledge the fighting and its military did not respond to requests for comment.

The Iranian-backed group said the clashes late on Friday happened in a cemetery on the edge of the town of Nabi Chit.

Hezbollah said the Israeli miliary launched massive airstrikes to secure the withdrawal of its forces amid the clashes.

The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 16 others were wounded in the strikes.

Russia has allegedly provided Iran with information that could help it strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, two officials familiar with US intelligence said.

The officials, who were not authorised to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that US intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information as the US and Israel and Iran fires retaliatory salvos at American assets and allies in the Persian Gulf.

Still, it's the first indication that Moscow has sought to get involved in the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran a week ago. 

Russia allegedly gave Iran with intel to help it strike US military

Russia is one of a small number countries that maintains friendly relations with Tehran, which has faced years of isolation over its nuclear programme and its…

Saudi Arabia faced repeated drone attacks early on Saturday targeting the area around its capital, Riyadh, and a major oil field.

The Saudi Defence Ministry said it intercepted all the drones it detected coming into the kingdom so far.

Coming under particular attack was Saudi Arabia’s massive Shaybah oil field, located deep in the sands of the Empty Quarter desert.

It produces 1 million barrels of oil a day, according to the state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco, which refers to the field as “most remote treasure on Earth.”

Iranian attacks increasingly have targeted oil infrastructure across the Gulf Arab states and disrupted ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded passes.

The State Department announced late on Friday that it approved the sale of thousands of 1,000-pound bombs to Israel.

It also said Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined there was an emergency need for the munitions and waived the normal congressional review process.

The notice to Congress informing it that lawmakers would be bypassed in the consideration of the sale did not say where Israel intends to use the bombs.

“The proposed sale will improve Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats, strengthen its homeland defence, and serve as a deterrent to regional threats,” it said.

The Israeli military said that air defences were responding to an Iranian missile attack in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Forces had "identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel.

Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat," the military said in a statement.

Air raid alerts across the country's north were lifted several minutes later.